Allen wrote: “Love a back and forth between a vet reporter and high level campaign official named short_pants. LOL.” Driscoll wrote back, explaining it was “a handle given me by Gov. Sundlun, which I proudly wear here on the Twittersphere.”

So it’s long past time to recount the history of @short_pants — a classic Rhode Island story that needs to be told.

In 2008, Driscoll was a field organizer for Barack Obama’s Rhode Island campaign, which was operating out of an office building on South Main Street, in Providence. One day, Driscoll filled in at the reception desk while an intern ate lunch, and an elderly woman and elderly man came in at about the same time. The woman asked for an Obama bumper sticker, and Driscoll explained the campaign was charging $3 per bumper sticker as part of a national strategy. The woman paid $3 and left.

Driscoll jumped out of his seat. An Oregon native and Providence College graduate, he’d seen photos and paintings of Sundlun (a Democrat who was governor from 1991 to 1995, and who died in 2011). But the man in those portraits was younger and always wore a double-breasted suit. “Do you know why I’m here?” Sundlun asked. Driscoll said, “No, sir.”

“I’m here to kick your (butt)!” Sundlun declared.

Sundlun, who lived in Jamestown, said Obama had a funny-sounding name and needed lawn signs. He said he’d counted 18 John McCain signs on Aquidneck Island — and not a single Obama sign.

Driscoll brought Sundlun to speak to Raymond J. Sullivan Jr., then the Obama campaign’s state director. Sullivan — now a partner in Checkmate Consulting, which is doing direct mail and printing for Pell’s campaign — said that before Driscoll could finish introducing him, Sundlun was yelling, “We are going to (expletive) lose! And it’s your (expletive) fault! Where are the damned lawn signs?”

Sullivan said they didn’t have signs yet but Sundlun didn’t seem to hear him or believe him. The shouting grew louder. Sullivan began handing him Obama T-shirts and bumper stickers. Sundlun asked, “Are they free?” Sullivan said, “Of course, governor.”

“Well, (expletive) short pants here is hustling bumper stickers at $3 a pop,” Sundlun said, pointing at Driscoll. (Driscoll, then 22, was wearing shorts but he thinks Sundlun was calling him young.)